The journey back was surprisingly, and fortunately, uneventful. Before she entered Anna’s secret base, Mai made sure to have a hearty drink from the bio-mass liquid she had left in the river.

BIOMASS 100%

Even a few hours away from the sewers meant that her nose was more sensitive to the aroma of the sewers, but it was particularly refreshing compared to that of burnt flesh. Mai made a mental note to get rid of her current clothing and make a new set as she was convinced she’d never be able to get rid of the stench of Sharktooth’s death.

Moving up to the door, she checked for any traps and then tapped the various bricks which would let her into the base. It was much easier now she knew what she was doing.

Knocking on the door she held her hands out wide to show that she still wasn’t a threat and went through all of the usual rigmarole of being patted down none-too-gently. Considering she could create weapons with a literal blink of an eye, it was somewhat amusing that they would concentrate on hard-copy and not nanite-based weapons.

Not that there’s anything they can do about my nanites, not heard of anyone having the ability to actually prevent someone from using them, she thought as she slapped away the hands of the particularly over-enthusiastic rebel patting her down.

“Well?” snapped Anna, hands on hips, chin jutting forward. She couldn’t have looked any more belligerent had she tried. Mai tried to remember Biyu’s words that they had something in common. Still, she could feel her hackles rising.

“Sharktooth attacked the base. Biyu’s lost too many people to be able to help you with whatever’s on the chip,” Mai didn’t think there was any point in sugar-coating the message. And she was too tired to waste breath on words that didn’t need to be said. She had a sneaking feeling that Anna would shortly make up for that lack.

Anna’s face quickly turned a mottled red, mouth opening and shutting as she struggled to find the words to express her clear anger.

She’d make a terrible Mah-jong player, Mai thought with a hidden smirk.

“Their base was attacked?” Anna repeated, skin going even darker.

“Soon after I arrived. A Culler called Sharktooth. Absolute psychopath. So named because he has more teeth than nature intended and likes to use them to bite his victims. Member of the prisoner faction. Never did find out what his crimes were. Used explosives and a flame thrower to take the base down.”

The less she said, the easier it was to keep her calm as Anna’s ire continued to grow. Mai half expected to see steam shooting out of Anna’s ears.

“And he arrived just after you?” Sneered Anna. A couple of the rebels started muttering and hefting their weapons in what they probably thought was a threatening manner.

Not to me, I faced one of my greatest nightmares and killed it, thought Mai.

“Yes,” Mai could see where this was going. No matter what she did, or didn’t say, she’d only give Anna more ammunition.

“So he either followed you, or you led him there deliberately.” That wasn’t a question, and the emphasis Anna gave to the last part of the sentence made it clear what she thought.

“I wasn’t followed, and I didn’t lead him there deliberately. It was just bad luck. Or he’d found them like I found this base. Easily.”

She knew that the barb was a bad idea before she said it. She didn’t realise just how bad until Anna’s hand cracked across her face.

DAMAGE! 1%

STUNNED!

She didn’t need the message to know that she’d been stunned. Stars had literally exploded in her eyes and it felt as though her chin was detached from the rest of her body. She knew it wasn’t due to the status effect message, but still.

“How dare you make jokes at a time like this!” Anna roared, spittle flying from her mouth. Her whole body strained towards Mai, with arms straight down, fists clenched. She was like a rabid dog straining at a leash.

“What’s a better time?” snarled Mai. “And don’t try hitting me again. I don’t like it.”

She flexed her fingers, ignoring all of the other rebels about her. Having seen how the last lot fought, she was confident she could take anyone in this room on and survive. Whether or not any of the rebels survived would remain to be seen.

“You’re a fucking traitor, and you’re going to admit to it now!” screamed Anna, flecks of spittle hitting Mai’s face as she leaned even further into Mai. Mai didn’t move though, refusing to be cowed. Refusing to give Anna any slight advantage, physical or mental.

“No, I’m not. And no I’m not,” Mai slowly slid a leg back. If she was going to fight, Anna was going to be the first to go. She seemed to be the glue holding the group together, and there was a chance that if she was dead, the others would be more amiable to listen to the facts.

“Prove it! Prove you’re not a traitor!” A pistol appeared in Anna’s hand. It was a traditional one, not a nanite one. But it would still do the job. She’d drawn it impressively quickly, an aspect of her vat-born reflexes.

Due to its proximity, the barrel seemed to be an incredibly large bore. Which, Mai was forced to admit to herself, was actually slightly intimidating. Especially as the person holding the weapon in her face was more than slightly unhinged.

Mai called up her recording of the last mission. Every action a person performed was recorded and held in storage for twenty-four hours on a personal drive. But having seen her ‘highlight reel’, she knew that the Celestial Court held them for much longer.

Using her retinal monitor, she created a RedFang connection, a wireless connection, and plugged herself into one of the many screens in the command centre.

“This is mostly going to be boring. Want me to fast-forward?”

“What, so you can skip past where you and Sharktooth meet and agree on the details of the attack?” sneered Anna, waving her barrel at Mai.

Shrugging, Mai played the mission from the moment she’d been assigned it by Anna. She’d seen it all before of course, so closed her retinal monitor version and let it play on the big screen whilst closing her eyes.

“What are you afraid of seeing the truth?” snapped Anna.

“No, afraid of seeing what I had to do to people in order to deliver your message. I don’t enjoy killing!” Mai was getting more than tired of Anna’s constant goading and paranoia.

Keeping her eyes closed, she blink-clicked a setting which would sound an alarm when it got to the time of Sharktooth’s attack and tried to get some sleep. Exhaustion made her bones ache and felt as though she was on the verge of tears.

I’m not going to bloody start weeping in front of that bitch, not because she was afraid of looking weak, but because Anna would think she was weak and she wasn’t going to give her any such satisfaction.

As soon as she closed her eyes it became apparent Anna wasn’t going to let her get any rest. She constantly asked questions, asked for the playback to be rewound and started again at a certain point.

“You do realise that there are hours of playback on this? It wasn’t a simple stroll in the fucking pedway!”

“You’re just afraid we’ll see something that you can’t explain!” cried Anna.

“To be fair Anna, we’ve seen nothing untoward,” interrupted a rebel. “Mai’s been given the mission and headed out straight after accepting it. The time for her to arrange something untoward would have been at the start. It also doesn’t make sense that we haven’t been attacked yet.”

“Yeah,” agreed another, “if she was a traitor, why wouldn’t she and this Sharktooth attack this base first, and then go on to attack Biyu’s after?

“Why go all the way over to Biyu’s base and then attack here?” Yet another asked. “It doesn’t make sense. And why would she kill Sharktooth if they planned to attack here after?”

Anna stood, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Chest heaving, spittle on her chin, fists still clench, she just stood, unable to respond, shocked speechless by the support her people had given Mai.

“Should I fast forward then?” Mai asked the first rebel to support her, a young man in his twenties with short hair and an open face. There was no guile in his face that Mai could see. Going by her gut, for once, Mai realised she could trust him. There was a chorus of assent from the other rebels and Anna made a strange, strangled sort of noise.

Choosing to take that as consent, Mai skipped forward. Once she got to Sharktooth’s attack, sounds of dismay filled the room as they watched the attack, and her single combat against what had seemed like the invincible.

“That settles it then.” The first rebel offered his hand to Mai just after she had killed Sharktooth. “I’m Chan. We’re done here Anna. As much as you might wish it, Mai’s no traitor.”

The other rebels all agreed, some coming forward to pat her gently on the back or to shake her hand, but all done with some form of awe in their demeanour given her obvious abilities.

“Well, I just,” stammered Anna, still not willing to back down and lose face. “I just wanted to make sure!”

“If that’s all, can someone show me to a bunk? I’m dead on my feet,” Mai said. More than a few rebels stepped forward to help her.

As she was led out of the room, she looked back at Anna. She’d never seen so much hate and anger as she did when she looked into Anna’s eyes.

Great, prove I’m not a threat, and become a bloody threat another way. Still, that was a battle she would have to fight another time. Bed beckoned. Although she’d be sleeping with one eye open.

*

Mai opened her eyes, stretching, enjoying the loud popping of her bones, revelling in the comfort of the bed and the warmth of the duvet covering her. Mai’s retinal monitor indicated that she’d been asleep for just over eighteen hours.

“How the hell aren’t the drones coming for me?” she wondered out loud, a burst of adrenaline sending her heart racing and completely spoiling the brief seconds of luxury she’d been enjoying.

“We have dampening in place. A load of shielding in the walls and a shield generator as well.” A male voice from the bunk above hers explained.

“But wouldn’t that just create a blank spot on the city maps?”

“No, we’ve made it look like a set of rooms, just as the way they appeared on your minimap when you were close enough. We’ve altered the city records to have these rooms marked as shelved and unsuitable for use. We have friends in high places.”

Mai chuckled at the old joke. And in this case it was the literal truth. The Imperial Bureau of Cartography was a well-respected and powerful part of the Imperial government. Those lucky to work for it came from no lower than eight mile. And so, they were definitely friends in high places indeed.

A pair of feet appeared and then the bunk’s owner dropped to the floor, landing in what Mai called a superhero pose. It was quite impressive. Looking up slowly, her bunkmate smiled. It was Chan.

“Morning, by the way. You looked so tired I issued orders to just let you wake naturally. Anna wanted to have another chat with you about the attack, but the rest of us agreed you’d been through enough.”

“Thanks for that. She’s really got it in for me.”

“Meh,” he shrugged. “She’s got it in for all humans. Takes a long time for her to be even slightly decent to someone. Still, she doesn’t usually get so antagonistic.” He smiled at that last. “You seem to have really rubbed her up the wrong way. Maybe you were enemies in a past life.”

Resurrection was a key part of the official Imperial Religion, second only to the worship of the Emperor. Nearly everyone believed that if they died they would return in the future and have a chance to live their life again and try to change any mistakes they’d made. Of course this meant that they would make yet more mistakes, but since they were going to be resurrected, they could change them again.

Mai wanted to believe in resurrection, as it would mean she and Li would be reunited with their parents, and Mai would have a chance to be a much better citizen, daughter, and sister. Yet, there was a doubt in her mind that it was just another piece of Celestial Court propaganda, something to keep the masses happy with their lot.

“So you’re working on democratic principles?” Pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind, she turned back to the conversation.

“No, she’s our leader, we have a proper command structure. I’m her second-in-command. But when our people speak, we listen to them. And they weren’t happy at Anna’s treatment of you. You didn’t have to return after everything that happened at Biyu’s base.”

Mai hadn’t even thought about that. She’d been given a mission to carry out and she’d carried it. There was nothing else she could have done.

Or was there? She thought. Just as everyone always selected YES when given an assignment, she assumed that they carried out those assignments to the very end. Was it possible that she could accept an assignment and then refuse, rather than fail to do it?

But what would the point of that be? If I accepted something and then decided not to do it, I wouldn’t get the reward. If there was one.

“What do I do now then?” she asked.

“You can join us. Fight against the Emperor and the Celestial Court. Help save other Cullers.”

“Or?” she wasn’t sure she wanted an ‘or’ but wanted to know all of the options. She rather suspected that there might be an ‘or’ which resulted in her disappearing forever, if Anna had her way that was.

“Or you return to the Culling and either Cull or be Culled. Who knows, you might even Ascend.” His tone told her just how realistic he thought that option was. And, although it would have been nice to have someone express the opposite opinion, and actually believe she could make it, she also appreciated the honesty.

“I think I can stick around a bit longer,” she smiled as he laughed. It was nice to feel accepted again. Aside from Anna, the rebel unit had the same feeling as her old sewer company. It had good people, a common goal, and a setup which meant she wasn’t going to be herded back into the Culling by the drones.

Even better is the fact that other Cullers won’t be able to find me, not unless they’re as good as Sharktooth was, Mai thought.

“Fine, you can keep the bunk beneath me. We lost Benito last week so it’s going spare.”

That was like having a bucket of ice water dumped over her. Yet again, reality insisted on crashing back into her life with both feet whilst screaming at the top of its lungs. Reality, in her opinion, could fucking do one.

*

Mai spent the rest of the day getting to know the layout of the base, as well as the rebels living there. It was much larger than she had previously thought, with plenty of secret doors, misleading passages, and hidden rooms.

It was as she was scouting through a new corridor that she thought she heard muffled voices. Activating her LARCENY skill, she moved down the hallway, stopping to place her ears against the wall every few paces or so.

“Those Cullers are still holed up … One Mile,” it sounded like Anna. As usual, she sounded angry. It was as if anger was her constant state of being.

“… know but without… can’t get them,” that was definitely Chan.

“Send … bitch?” Mai sighed, it was clear she was the bitch in question. Anna was determined to keep using her until she was Culled. And there was nothing she could do about it. Not if she wanted to stay with the rebel unit.

Can't do anything about it yet, she thought. It surprised her that she would think such a thing. She wasn’t normally the sort of person who would think about offing someone who was being mean to her. But then again, she wouldn’t have thought she would be the sort of person who could claim she’d have thirty-six kills to her name.

She staggered at the sudden thought of that number, knocking against the wall.

Shit, why the fuck didn’t I use STEALTH? It might have mitigated her clumsiness. No use crying over spilt rice win.

“… was that?” Anna’s voice now sounded as if it was getting closer to the hallway Mai found herself in.

Frantically, Mai activated STEALTH, spun and sprinted for the end of the corridor. Immediately upon reaching the corner she threw herself to one side, sliding along the ground for a couple of paces.

“It’s nothing,” Anna’s voice echoed down the corridor. “Probably just being paranoid.”

“I think we’re done here anyway,” Chan said. “I’ll see about drawing up some plans. Get back to you with them in two hours or so.”

Mai drew her knees in, placed her weight onto her hands and then tilted her body so that her feet were firmly on the floor. Then, as Chan’s footsteps drew closer she was off and running as silently as possible.